Tel-Aviv taxi

The driver looked back at my girlfriend in the rearview mirror. “Norwegian? No, no, we don't like Norwegians” he said roughly in his very basic English; “they only like Palestine and talk bad about Israel.” My gal, in her very polite Scandinavian custom, responded with a “but my boyfriend is Chilean.” The cab man changed his aggressive tone for a smile and said “oh, Chile! South America! Very good football! I like Chile!” I, condescendingly, replied “yeah, very good football.” Inside, I was laughing, ironically. If Israelis knew that Chile openly supports Palestine and has the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world, they would have treated me as bad as my girl. Ignorance is a blessing.

Love Trip, Episode 02: London, England.

What can I say about London? Not much, really. Only spent one and a half days there, so I'm not able to give an advanced talk on the city and everything related to it. But I can share some facts I saw during my stay. London is big, so it has a clock of similar proportions, The Big Ben. And lots of bridges. And very expensive beer. And many museums called “Tate”, of which I could only see the modern one.

London subway, a.k.a. “the Tube”, is massive, and has so many lines and colors that looking at its map makes you feel trapped in a fucking maze. Lucky me, I was with my girl. She definitely knew her way around. Well, didn't pick the hostel pretty wisely, but can't blame her. St Christopher's Inn sounded like a nice place, but ended up being shit. Mixing a busy pub with a hostel is not a great idea.

Anyway, and this may sound very shallow, there was something about London that got my attention: the racial variety. I mean, I know it's the 21st century and this shouldn't be a detail at all, but I come from the ass crack of the world. In Chile, there is no mix at all. We had our first black people 5 years ago, for fuck's sake! So, as you can imagine, London was a revelation. Variety wherever I looked, like being in a United Colors of Benetton ad. Amazing!

And, shallow as this comment is, I really liked the people in general over there. Most of them looked so good. Well dressed, fit, tidy. It was a real fashion capital. In Swansea, I felt so disappointed about the people there and their overall trashiness. “Where's the so called euro look?” I thought. But London was basically being in another world; a world of good looking citizens in which I felt a bit out of place. Ironically, many girls checked me out, which was new for me in Europe. The more multicultural the city, the more attractive you get? I don't know. Somebody should look into that.

And that's what I have to say about London. Huge city, very trendy and multicultural, with an apparently infinite subway and the most expensive pints of beer I've ever seen. Yeah, London is the shit. Chaotic, enormous, expensive and beautiful shit.

PS: I'm not joking about St Christopher's Inn, it is shit, and not in a good way -if there's any-!

Love Trip, Episode 01: Swansea, Wales

Dylan Thomas, poet and Swansea's only renown character, once called his hometown the “graveyard of ambition.” When I had just arrived to this city in Wales, I didn't know this phrase, this character nor any reasons to judge Swansea.

After a few days there, I noticed something was fishy, and I'm not talking about the smell coming from tha bay. The city had this trashy atmosphere all around; something completely new to me, a fresh newcomer not only to this place, but to Europe. “Maybe it's just me” I thought. But it wasn't.

A friend of my girlfriend, when we asked him what did he think about us as a couple, simply said that we are equally weird. That was funny; yet not as funny as what I witnessed that night out at Wine Street, city's bar and club central. Slutty pink dresses, very short skirts, cutoff shorts showing half the ass. Girls did not know how to dress up nor showed any interest to cover up their excess of fat and abundance of cellulite. And the guys did not do any better, with extremely tight shirts, ridiculous muscles and “Douche 101” looks. “God, what's wrong with this people!?” I constantly said. But it wasn't until we decided to return to our place when the newly learned words from Swansea's most popular man came to my mind.

On our way back home, we saw a guy sitting on a bench, pucking while talking to his mates about going to a club afterwards. That and all the dog shit on our way back to our house made me realize that the poet's harsh words may have not been just a simple metaphor. Dylan Thomas was right. “Welcome to Swansea, the graveyard of ambition.”